czvasser Fried Chicken

Family Album

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

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Family Album

My 1st born should be Malcolm or Muhammad
Rare players hold the line with their lives
Crème not to be trifled
Faster than bullets and endorsements
Podiums won kicked out from under us
Hands echoed by a throng believing in a dream
You and I represent all
We build children in the image we have of them
broken upon the black man’s rack
My father rock crushes and road builds.
My mother cotton labors.
Prison rewards them
with me no better than a bushel.
Women with dry breasts feed families
scraps of soul cooked food.
Children wash their dreams away
Against armies still in blue and gray.
Fear is an auction platform
thought black men have demonstrated worth.
We sing, we dance, we play sometimes strangely
indifferently fanned by green prevailing winds.

– CZVasser

czvasser Fried Chicken

Domestic Enemies

 

A malnourished Somali child is wrapped in an American "Stars and Stripes" cloth at a therapeutic feeding center at Dagahaley camp

“I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. . .so help me God.” – United States Oath of Allegiance

 

Domestic Enemies

Hands washing hand
over hearts saluting a flag
hiding busted leather knuckles.

Hand over hand
hoisting domestic violence to new heights
Calling patriotism picking strange fruit.

No one washes the feet of Jesus anymore
9mm sin and shame
revisiting ropes and shackles.

The middle passage continues
internment masquerades as prison
privilege divining men and women as morsels.

Waiting for the next coming of Christ
and the 2nd civil rights movement
in redlined skyscrapers and subdivisions.

The 2nd act played
they’ve moved to bobbing for apples
and applesauce.

And you, Brutus
one of the domestic enemies
swaddled in blue.

Agreed officers are overseers
of the good public
slaying myths, beasts and colored people.

We fix blame as always
not children of Ham
proved by cranial cavity.

You call it home
tombstones the prominent monument
unmarked graves the foundation.

  • CZVasser
czvasser Fried Chicken

On Being Black

“An attack on any one of us is an attack against us all. The slaughter of black people must be stopped by any means necessary.” BPP

black-panthers-50

I put my bible in plastic wrap
planted it under the tomatoes
gave up being
black.

I promised to
give up more
black isn’t enough.

Not slithered anymore
by anyone or anything
You don’t wound a snake . . .

I’ve faded
the flag
3 to 5.

No funding Xs
non-hispanic
breaking rocks
break dancing.

Gave up being
black.

Left the definers
powerless with a canyon
knievel couldn’t stunt.

Consider internment from
plantations to projects
roll away from reparations
rather than one parsec
black.

Soul train line it
throw away the du rag.
Feel natural man
afro like.

Engender cosmic questions
of love, circumstance
and missing ribs.
We could free more
if we do.

I may be sick and tired
of sick and tired
but I won’t be
what you think I am.

All right Spike, I’m ready for my close up.

– CZVasser